if not all other studies. They admit that their analysis was ‘perhaps too
simplistic to capture the complex reality of the implementation and oper-
ation of HPWS’, but they note, realistically, that ‘there are major limitations
to the strategic management of labour which severely constrain the potential
for innovative approaches to be implemented successfully’.
Eileen Appelbaum, Thomas Bailey, Peter Berg and Arne Kalleberg
(2000)
A multifaceted research design was used by the authors in their study of the
impact of HPWSs. This included management interviews, the collection of
plant performance and data surveys of workers on their experiences with
workshop practices. Nearly 4,400 employees were surveyed and 44 manu-
facturing facilities were visited.
The findings of the research in industry were that:
l in the steel industry HPWSs produced a string of positive effects on
performance, for example substantial increases in uptime;l in the apparel industry the introduction of a ‘module system’ (ie group
piecework rates linked to quality as well as quantity rather than indi-
vidual piecework, plus multiskilling) dramatically speeded up
throughput times, meeting consumer demands for fast delivery;l in the medical electronics and imaging industry those using an HPWS
ranked highly on eight diverse indicators of financial performance and
production efficiency and quality.The impact of HPWS on individual workers was to enhance:
l trust by sharing control and encouraging participation;
l intrinsic rewards because workers are challenged to be creative and use
their skills and knowledge – intrinsic rewards are most likely to be
enhanced where the role provides a reasonable degree of discretion and
autonomy;l organizational commitment through opportunity to participate, and
incentives that make people feel that organizational relationships are
beneficial for them;l job satisfaction because of participation, perception of fairness in pay and
adequate resources to do jobs (inadequate resources are a cause of dissat-
isfaction, as is working in an unsafe or unclean environment).Taken as a whole, the results suggested that the core characteristics of
HPWSs – having autonomy over task-level decision making, membership of
self-directing production and offline teams, and communication with people
120 l HR strategies